Reinhart's Women: A Novel, Page 2

  Winona blushed. “Oh, Dad, come on.”

  Reinhart chuckled happily. “No, I’m afraid I was just a statistic until then. But I didn’t mind, dear. I like nothing better than bragging about you. Well, as I told you, that’s how it began. That was just two days back. We found ourselves having lunch in that restaurant in the shopping center that used to be Gino’s.” Reinhart winced at a series of unpleasant memories under the old management. “It’s a better place now, with a more expansive though somewhat hokey menu sometimes: pineapple with baked fish, and ginger with anything. Grace had the New York steak, hold the potato, and helped herself only modestly at the salad bar. I ordered the escalope de veau—we don’t have it here very often because the price of veal is really insane”—not to mention that Winona wouldn’t eat it—“and when the orders arrived, the waiter needless to say put the cutlets in front of her. ...They were by the way more Wiener schnitzel than escalopes, breaded, for gosh sakes, but not badly, with grated Gruyère and what tasted like a little real Parmesan in the breading...”

  Winona was wearing a sweetly bored look by now.

  “Anyway, we also had a drink before eating: I had the vermouth cassis, and Grace, the Jim Beam and water, and the bartender remembered which was which and kidded us about it. Grace is not so big, you know, in body.”

  At that point the doorbell sounded. Winona gasped and scampered back to her room. Reinhart had never seen her in such consternation over a visitor: she was not above greeting a gentleman caller in an old wrapper and curlers—in which, needless to say, she still enchanted him.

  Reinhart opened the door. This was but the third time he had seen Grace and the first occasion on which he might have called her almost pretty. Something had been done to her hair, and her eyes had been skillfully made up. Though she was wearing a suit, as she had on their second meeting, a dinner date, it now seemed more subtly feminine, somehow: lace blouse underneath, a bit of jewelry, and so on.

  Grace was not, as Reinhart had mentioned, a large woman. To shake hands with Reinhart, her forearm was put at a steep angle.

  “Welcome to the humble abode, Grace,” said her host, with an expansive left wrist.

  Grace controlled the shake, irrespective of the remarkable difference in fists, and peering around, she penetrated the living room. “It’s hardly humble, Carl,” she said in her brisk voice. “But then why should it be?” She suddenly looked vulnerable, an unprecedented and, Reinhart would have said, a most unlikely phase for Grace Greenwood. She continued to walk about in a military stride.

  “Won’t you sit down?” he asked. “May I give you a drink?”

  She produced an abrupt, barking laugh. “Anything that’s wet!”

  She strode to the windows and laughed again. “There’s the river, huh?” But the view was not sufficiently riveting to keep her there for a third second, and she turned and marched to the middle of the room, where presumably she could not be jumped by surprise—so it might have looked to someone who was not aware of Grace’s credentials. Reinhart had never known anyone so confident at the core of her being; there was no bluster about Grace, none of the self-doubt usually apparent in some form in the boldest of women, and not one iota of vanity.

  Despite her apparent indifference to the choice of potation he remembered how precise Grace had been about her preprandial drinks at their other two social engagements. (At dinner she had specified Johnnie Walker Red, diluted only by a sparkling mineral water called Minnehaha, of which, it turned out, her firm was the local distributor.)

  He now poured her what she had drunk at their shopping-center lunch, a Jim Beam with tap water and ice, and was on his way to deliver it when Grace seemed all at once a frozen image in one of those cinematic stop-actions which had become a cliché in recent years, from an actress fixed toothily in mid-laugh to a car forever hurtling from a bluff into the ocean. Grace was arrested in a slight hunch of body and an enigmatic moue.

  The fact was that Winona had slunk almost silently into the room, but if Grace had seen her, it was through the back of her own head, for she, Grace, was still facing Reinhart.

  “Aha!” he cried, perhaps too stridently, but he wanted to get beyond this purposelessly awkward moment. “Grace Greenwood, this is my daughter Winona.”

  But Grace remained in her stasis, facing him. Was she deaf? Or had she actually suffered an attack of paralysis?

  Meanwhile Winona continued her sneaky approach, which seemed literally on tiptoe, but this was not the least of her eccentricities. She had changed her attire for the fourth time. She now wore black slacks, a tight black turtleneck shirt, and black shoes with high heels—it was her manner of walking in this awkward footgear that Reinhart saw as tiptoeing. Finally, her hair was pulled severely around the back of her head, where it was presumably gathered into a knot. Her eyes had a suggestion of the mysterious East: they had been slightly almondized by the tension on her skin at the temples.

  Reinhart knew he would never understand the mysteries of women’s styles of dress. Winona of course would have looked perfect in anything, but why for a spring luncheon she had finally settled on a costume suggestive of a Hollywood gunfighter’s, sans only the pancake Stetson, was inexplicable.

  At last she, as it were, rounded Grace’s corner, for Grace had still not moved, and in a special low voice, one Reinhart had never suspected she could produce, she uttered only one word, “Hello,” but put a good deal of force into that word, and having said it, she stepped back one pace, put her hands on her sleek black hips, and stared severely at the other woman.

  “Winona,” said Reinhart, “this is my new friend, Grace Greenwood.”

  Grace now emerged from her absolute fixity, but only so far as slow motion would take her. It seemed as though she might actually curtsy, but if so she changed her mind. Instead she glared at Reinhart and then abruptly seized the drink from him, almost spilling some in the swirl.

  “Here,” she said, in a kind of screech as unprecedented as Winona’s baritone, and she thrust the whiskey at Reinhart’s daughter.

  This was the most remarkable display of something or other that he had ever witnessed, and he was so unsettled by it that he took a largish draft of the bourbon and water, a drink that he would ordinarily have put at the bottom of his list, owing to the cloying, almost confectionary effect it produced on his palate. However, though he winced at the earliest taste, the warm aftereffect now was comforting. He realized that he found Winona’s performance to be lacking in graciousness: this was not like her at all.

  Alas, it was obvious that she and Grace made a poor mix. He would of course stop seeing Grace, but meanwhile she was his guest and he would feed her.

  “Winona,” he said with a certain asperity, “I have to go now and work on the meal. Please be hospitable. Oh, Grace, if you don’t want the Beam, there’s Johnnie Walker Red. I’ve, also got your favorite Minnehaha mineral water.”

  But Grace seemed not to hear him. As for his daughter, she said obediently, sweetly, returning to the old Winona, “Oh, I sure will, Dad. Grace, won’t you sit down, please.”

  “Where?” asked Grace. She seemed bewildered.

  Whatever the state of the world outside, everything made sense when Reinhart was with his pots and pans. With his big chef’s knife he minced an onion and then a clove of garlic, and put them in a deep skillet with the blanched bits of bacon: all of these were sautéed together until they turned golden. At that point the half-cup of chicken stock was introduced, and two cups of red wine (a vintage Cabernet Sauvignon from California—not dirt-cheap, but the resulting liquid would become the sauce and must be edible), then salt, pepper, and sugar to taste (lest the reduced wine be too acid), and finally a bouquet garni: bay leaf, thyme, parsley, and two cloves, bundled in cheesecloth. He put this concoction on to simmer, and he trimmed the crusts from three square slices of a firm white bread, divided each slice in two, and sautéed the six little rectangles in butter.

  Ten minutes had been consumed by thes
e labors. The fragrant, simmering liquid would profit by ten more. He now had a moment in which to check on his guest.

  The women were silent when he came into the living room, and they sat as far from each other as the arrangement of furniture would permit.

  Grace held a glass full of ice cubes and colorless fluid.

  “Um,” Reinhart asked of her, “vodka or gin?”

  She hastily, even guiltily, took a sip, then elevated the glass in a kind of triumph. “Diet Seven-Up!” she cried. “Delicious!”

  “Good God,” said Reinhart. “Is that your work, Winona? Here, Grace, let me get you something to drink. Winona, how could you?” He went across the room with outstretched hand.

  But Grace fended him off, and from his left Winona wailed, “That’s what she wanted, Daddy! You just ask her.”

  Grace shouted desperately, “I love it!”

  Reinhart decided to give up his mission, whatever the truth of her averment: emotions, even if politely hypocritical, should be discouraged before any kind of meal (with the possible exception of high glee at a ball game, followed by a mustard-drenched hot dog and a paper-cupful of warm beer).

  “As long as you’re happy,” he said, halting. “Winona has a professional reason for her diet, but even so I often don’t approve of it. I can’t get her to accept the fact that she first began to lose weight on my cuisine, but in a sensible way, and with no loss of nourishment or flavor.”

  “Please, Carl, say no more on that subject,” Grace said. It was almost a command. Good, she was coming back to normal. But no sooner had Reinhart made that observation when Winona spoke up in obvious irritation.

  “Daddy has a very good point, Grace, and you should listen to him.”

  Reinhart was amazed by his daughter: where had this forceful style come from?

  “Sorry, Carl,” said Grace, “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  “You weren’t,” Reinhart said firmly. This still wasn’t going well, he was sorry to see, despite Grace’s heroic efforts to get on with her hostess, absolutely the reverse of what the situation should have been. He was really getting very cross with Winona, and had it not been she who paid the rent, he might have considered sending her to bed! This thought came to him as only in part a jest. Though his daughter supported him in money, he provided her security in every other respect, and he was aware that Winona expected him to wield the domestic authority.

  She got his implication now. “You see,” she said to Grace in a more decent tone, “what Dad says about food is right, but my trouble is that all I have to do to gain weight is to smell something delicious, I’m sorry to say. Until not too many years ago I was a baby elephant. My brother used to call me that, and ‘whale,’ and other lovely names.”

  Grace looked as though she might weep. In twenty minutes Winona had evoked from her a display of feelings that Reinhart had not suspected she had, and not once since the appearance of his daughter had Grace shown that part of her personality that had been salient in his previous meetings with her.

  “That was because of the high-carbohydrate junk food you used to gorge on,” he now told Winona. He addressed Grace: “And so did I! At the worst point I was almost fifty pounds heavier than I am now, at ten years younger.” He expected Grace to show some amazement at this, as people could usually be relied on to do, but she merely smiled vaguely into the middle distance. “Well.” He made a gesture. “I’d better get back to my eggs.”

  No one offered to stop him, and he returned to the kitchen. He tasted the liquid, which had reduced somewhat in the simmering. Despite the sugar it was still slightly tinged with acidity, but this condition would surely be corrected when the cooked mushrooms were added, even though they had themselves been sprinkled with lemon juice: you learned such things with experience. He heated butter and oil in a skillet and quickly sautéed the mushrooms. When that was done, it was time to poach the eggs in the perfumed bath of wine and stock and bacon and onions and garlic.

  The oeufs en meurette when done were pinkish gray, not in themselves a ravishing display, but they were masked in the velvety, rich brown sauce made from the poaching liquid, thickened and augmented by the mushrooms, and they were mounted on the croutons fried golden in hot butter.

  Reinhart had opened a fresh bottle of the same wine that had been used for the poaching, and he had made a simple salad of washed and dried watercress without dressing. To follow was only a sorbet of fresh pears, made of the puréed poached fruit and egg white. Some light sugar wafers. And no more to the brunch but Mocha-Java, with heavy cream: too early in the day for the inky-black infusion of “espresso.”

  This meal represented Reinhart’s ideal of great flavor and no bulk. He was pleased with himself as he carried the plat de résistance into the dining ell off the living room. The plates were heating on a Salton hot-tray on the sideboard. He put them in place on the table and poured the wine. There was a dramatic moment at the outset of any meal, just before anyone took the first bite, when the napery was spotless, the cutlery unsullied, the wine gleamed behind crystal, the dishes were at their visual perfection—a good moment, but not the best to Reinhart, who was a cook and not a maître d’hôtel.

  No, the best time of all was when the persons for whom he had provided the meal began to eat it! He went around the corner to fetch Winona and Grace.

  The door to the hall was open, and the living room was empty.

  Before he reached the doorway Winona came through it from the corridor, scowling inscrutably. When she saw her father she lowered her head for an instant, then raised it and said wretchedly, “I guess you’re ready to shoot me.”

  Reinhart did nothing for a moment, and then, sighing, he embraced his daughter and led her to the sofa.

  “We’re going to have a man-to-girl talk,” he said to Winona, who was displaying her old schoolchild sheepishness, her head inclining towards his shoulder. “The fact is, Winona: you’ve spoiled me rotten!”

  From the side of his eye he could detect her flinching smirk. “I mean it! I’m the spoiled one, and I’m responsible for this awful waste of your youth.” She made some childish murmur of contentment. God, how hard it was to say this! What dad did not want to keep his daughter home forever?

  Reinhart rose and stood before her. “It’s simply not right that we each be the only member of the opposite sex that the other has as a friend! I’m not suggesting it’s perverted or anything of that sort, but it simply isn’t balanced. You know, that’s one criterion of a meal: whether it’s balanced. Cream soup, stewed chicken, mashed potatoes, cauliflower, and blancmange, however well prepared each by each, would be a white horror in the ensemble!”

  “Dad—” Winona began.

  “No, Winona, we must face the fact that you’re not sixteen any more. You’re almost twenty-six. You’re not in school. You have a profession, and a very lucrative one, in this town. If you went to New York, or even Chicago, you could be positively rich, I’m sure, modeling for Cover Girl or Clairol Herbal Essence or something on TV for hair or skin or whatnot.”

  “Daddy—”

  “I realize that you felt Grace would alienate my affections towards you.” Reinhart took long strides to the windows and back. In the river below were two barges in tandem. He had mostly stayed home for some years: the world outside, especially from the height of this apartment, was more and more a mere picture. Often he even ordered food from a high-priced store with delivery service: Winona could afford it. He had not had a lady friend in time out of mind. And now this!

  “Don’t think I’m criticizing you, dear,” he said, coming back to a position before the couch. He laughed for effect, but the irony was real enough. “How could I, when you pay the rent?”

  Winona made an unhappy expression: she hated him to mention that. She disliked his making reference to anything that could be interpreted as being personally negative. In that attitude she was unique in all the family, at least since the passing of his own father years before, and in truth Reinh
art had always considered his dad a bit simple-minded. He had always believed that his mother’s predominant feeling towards him was contempt, and a final proof was provided from the grave: her will had ignored both himself and his favorite child in favor of his son, Blaine, a fellow with whom Reinhart had seldom seen eye to eye in whichever era.

  “Daddy,” Winona began once more, “you don’t—”

  “No,” said Reinhart, “of course I’m not angry. But I’m afraid that I feel responsible for what had to be an unpleasant experience for poor Grace. I’m going to have to call her up and apologize, Winona.” He smiled at her. “I won’t bring any more ladies home from now on, I promise. But I wish you would think about what I said. We both, but you in particular, young as you are, need some other friends. And listen here—don’t forget that I’ll be jealous of your young men! That’s only natural, close as we are. Now, shall we eat, before my lovely eggs are completely cold?” He clapped his hands. “Something new for you. I know you don’t care much for poached eggs, Winona, but these are pretty special—poached in wine, with mushrooms! I know you’ll adore them!”

  In truth he was fairly certain she wouldn’t like them at all, and had really prepared the dish to impress Grace Greenwood, who would probably not have liked it either, judging from what she had ordered on their two dates at restaurants.

  Winona had hung her head during all his comments, raising it only to protest feebly from time to time. But finally she made a great gasp and spoke as loudly as she could in the soft voice in which she had never failed to address him.

  “Daddy! You’re just going to have to listen to me!”

  “O.K.,” said Reinhart. “I’m sorry, Winona. I didn’t realize—uh, go ahead, please.”

  She stared at him for a while. Had he not known better, he might have believed her emotion to be self-righteousness: something he had never detected in Winona in all her life.

  “Dad, I did not first meet Grace Greenwood in this apartment.”

  “You didn’t?” Reinhart cocked his head. “Huh.” Suddenly he had a premonition that he should be seated. He chose a low, overstuffed chair across the coffee table from his daughter, the kind of chair from which, in his heavy days, he would not have been able to rise without heroic effort.